Quote

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." - Isaac Asimov

About Me

I am developing chatbots that can engage in dialogical argumentation in order to persuade the user to accept the chatbot’s stance. My expertise therefore mainly lies in:

  • Knowledge Acquisition/Representation
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Dialogue Systems/Chatbots
  • Computational Argumentation

For a demo of my latest project, a chatbot that tries to persuade people to take a COVID-19 vaccine, once one should be developed, click here.

I have reviewed papers for journals and conferences, including ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare, Knowledge-Based Systems, and the Annual Conference of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL).

It's my firm belief that a good challenge offers an opportunity to develop and improve, which is why I make a point of seeking out new ones in the professional realm as well as in my personal life. Apart from my research I also devote a reasonable amount of time to teaching and sports. Take a moment and look around, and contact me directly to learn more.

Skills

Natural Language Processing

Data Science

Teaching

Publications

Assessing Convincingness of Arguments in Online Debates with Limited Number of Features

European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics 2017 - Student Workshop

Argument Harvesting Using Chatbots

Computational Models of Argument (COMMA) 2018 (received Best Student Paper Prize)

Chatbot Design for Argument Harvesting

Computational Models of Argument (COMMA) 2018 - Demo Session

Impact of Argument Type and Concerns in Argumentation with a Chatbot

International Conference on Tools for Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI) 2019

Towards Computational Persuasion via Natural Language Argumentation Dialogues

Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) 2019

Knowledge Acquisition and Corpus for Argumentation-Based Chatbots

3rd Workshop on Advances In Argumentation In Artificial Intelligence (AI³) 2019

A Persuasive Chatbot using a Crowd-Sourced Argument Graph and Concerns

Computational Models of Argument (COMMA) 2020 - Innovative Applications track

Addressing Popular Concerns regarding COVID-19 Vaccination with Natural Language Argumentation Dialogues

The Sixteenth European Conference on Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Reasoning with Uncertainty (ECSQARU 2021)

Some Stats

1200

Hours of Teaching
& Coaching

3

Fluent Languages

4

Countries lived in

2000

Cups of coffee

Education

  • PRESENT
    -
    2016

    University College London

    MPhil/PhD Computer Science

    Working on the development of chatbots that can engage in dialogical argumentation.

  • 2016
    -
    2015

    Imperial College London

    MSc Computing Science

    Graduated with an overall average of 61% and received 74% for my individual project. My optional modules were Algorithms, Logic Based Learning, Introduction to AI and Networks.

  • 2015
    -
    2012

    London School of Economics

    LLB Bachelor of Laws

    Graduated with an Upper Second (2.1) with optional modules being Commercial Contracts, Russian Legal Systems, Law of Business Associations, IT Law and Introduction to Finance and Accounting.

  • 2011
    -
    2003

    European School of Karlsruhe

    European Baccalaureate (EB)

    Graduated with an overall of 89% with my advanced subjects being Mathematics, Economics, History and Spanish.

Experience

  • Present
    -
    Nov 2021

    lisankaNLP

    Freelance NLP Data Scientist, Consultant & Coach

    Many companies that are dealing with textual data are using sub-optimal solutions to analyse it (like MS Excel). My goal is to provide those companies with the necessary training and tools to make the most of their textual data. I am offering training in English, German and Russian.

    I also take on contractual work for data science projects that require NLP (mainly in Legal Tech).

    Tutor at the University of Oxford in the Department of Continuing Education.

    Mentor at Crimson Education

    Tutor at The Profs.

  • Sep 2021
    -
    April 2021

    Huawei

    Research Intern

    Working on intent recognition for the Huawei AppGallery.

  • Sept 2021
    -
    March 2021

    UCL

    Associate Lecturer

    Group project supervision in Statistical Natural Language Processing course and Master Thesis supervision.

  • March 2021
    -
    Sep 2016

    UCL

    Teaching Assistant

    Teaching Assistant in the following courses (2020/21)

    • 3rd year Machine Learning & Neural Computation
    • 3rd year Data Mining & Analysis

    Also taught in the past

    • 3rd year/MSc Operating Systems
    • 2nd/3rd year Introduction to Programming
    • 2nd year Logic and Database Theory
    • 2nd year Systems Engineering (Project Supervision)
    • 1st year Theory of Computation
    • 1st year Robotics

    Lecturer at Computer Science Face-to-Face Enrichment 2020/21

    Introduction to NLP

    Teaching Assistant and Module Leader at UCL Summer School 2019

    Data Science and Big Data Analytics (Level 2)

    Teaching Awards

    • Awarded Price for Best Assessment and Feedback by the Engineering Faculty 2018/2019
    • Nominated for best TA in Computer Science Department 2017/2018

  • Oct 2018
    -
    Jul 2018

    Quantumblack (McKinsey)

    Data Engineer Intern

    Contributed to the development of the data pipeline for an MVP to predict trial sites for pharmaceutical companies.

  • Sep 2015
    -
    Oct 2014

    LSE

    IT - Helpdesk Consultant

    Provided typical help desk support to staff and students regarding their personal computers.

Contact

London
United Kingdom

academic: ucablc3{at}ucl{dot}ac{dot}uk

professional: lisa.chalaguine{at}gmail{dot}com

TBC